


The Bleak Midwinter

by hangingfire



Category: Lord Peter Wimsey - Dorothy L. Sayers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-12-15
Updated: 2008-12-15
Packaged: 2018-01-25 06:01:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,177
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1635350
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hangingfire/pseuds/hangingfire
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Christmas Eve, 1939. In which Lord and Lady Peter Wimsey look to the future.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Bleak Midwinter

**Author's Note:**

> It's a privilege to write this little holiday greeting for Niamh St. George, whose Yuletide work I've enjoyed a lot in previous years. Many, many thanks as ever to innocentsmith for being a marvellous beta-reader and terrific friend. (And for the curious, the toy soldier is by the William Britain company, makers of toy soldiers since 1893.)
> 
> Written for Niamh St. George

But for the gentle crackling of the fire, Talboys was silent. Harriet sat by her bedroom hearth, a book by Isherwood open on her knees, while she toyed with a small object in her hand. The children were asleep and all was peaceful; only the master of the house and his man were absent. Harriet felt a fitful urge to slip downstairs and switch on the wireless, but there was the soundness of the children's rest to consider, and on Christmas Eve, she felt, one ought to be grateful for what peace one could get, regardless of what the leaders of certain other obstreperous nations—and one's own, for that matter—may have had in mind.

She closed her book; she had not been able to focus on it in any case. Just then, she heard the front door open and a voice ringing out in song:

>   
>  _—Frosty wind made moan_   
>  _Earth stood hard as iron_   
>  _Water like a stone_   
>  _Snow had fallen_   
>  _Snow on—_   
> 

The carol broke off, and Bunter's voice was audible just on the edge of hearing. "... given the hour, one might reasonably imagine that the children—"

"Ah." Peter, sounding chastened. "Yes, of course. Silly of me to not think ... ah, thank you, Bunter. And the scarf too."

"Will you need anything else, my lord?"

"Nothing, not a thing. In fact, I forbid you to ask if I need anything until tomorrow."

"Thank you, my lord."

"Good night, Bunter. And Merry Christmas."

"And a Merry Christmas to you, my lord. And to her ladyship as well."

"I shall give her your warmest regards. Now be off with you."

"My lord."

Footfalls on the stairs, and the door opened. "Still awake, domina? I didn't wake the boys with my infernal noise, did I?"

Harriet turned in her chair to smile up at her husband. "If you did, I expect we shall hear about it shortly. Bredon finally settled down about half an hour ago or so. I presume Mr Puffett's goose has been restored to him?"

"Indeed it has, and the good reputation of the Home and Colonial restored as well. The silly thing had been delivered to the wrong place, as it turned out." Peter leaned against the arm of the chair and kissed Harriet on the top of her head. "Puffett was terribly sorry for dragging me into it, but I thought it a pleasant enough diversion."

"To say nothing of neighbourly, of course," Harriet said, amused. Peter and his willingness to look into the most minor of village mysteries were becoming something of a fixture of local life; Harriet suspected this state of affairs would only become more pronounced, as it looked like they were to be there for quite some time.

The fixture himself seemed cheerfully accepting of the role. "Indeed. I can't say that I should have asked to spend a large part of my Christmas Eve tramping through open fields, but I daresay it was certainly preferable to, oh, one of Gerald's wretched dinner parties, say. And it was quite satisfying to—What have you got in your hand there?"

"This?" She opened her hand to reveal a small lead soldier. "This and its brethren arrived from St George this afternoon, while you were out. Bredon has been inseparable from it and would have taken it to bed with him if he could."

Peter took the toy and grimaced at the little soldier's all-too-familiar khaki jacket and round helmet—a uniform from the last war. For a moment he really looked as if he might toss it into the fire, but then he set the thing down on the mantelpiece, handling it as if it were dangerous. "What the hell was St. George thinking? That's no toy for a boy of three," he said. "Nor for anyone."

Not for the first time in their acquaintance, Harriet silently cursed St George in his well-meaning impulsiveness and his tendency to be all too forgetful of his uncle's sensitivities. "I suppose he thought he was being patriotic," she ventured.

"Damn it, I'm sure he did." Peter sat down heavily and stared into the fire. "That's the spirit of the moment, isn't it? Cry 'Havoc' and all, and teach our children to do the same. Mother is anticipating more ration-books and people getting killed; ridiculous and unnecessary, she calls it. All her way of expressing being put out at the entire business of war as a whole."

He was trying too hard for the old ironic humour and not quite achieving it, Harriet thought. The firelight made his expression look tired and strained, and all at once she was terribly, selfishly grateful her husband and sons were safe from the war: Peter well beyond even the new conscription age, and the boys scarcely more than infants; certain mercies, perhaps, in having waited so long to marry. And of course, there was Talboys itself, a retreat from London, from the incessant talk of gas-masks and blackouts and dread. They'd come to Talboys in late August—then there had been Poland, then the mobilisations; and now they had been in the country for four months straight and a speedy return to London seemed unlikelier by the day.

Echoing her own thoughts, Peter said abruptly, "At least the boys will be safe here. And perhaps," here he smiled thinly, "perhaps this shall all be over before they are old enough to be horrified by it. D'you remember what they always said about the last war?" 

She nodded. "That it would all be over by Christmas."

"And here's Christmas now. I shan't make any predictions about when this will end; I know better this time."

The brittleness in his voice was becoming too much. "Peter."

He finally turned his gaze from the fire to look at her. "Yes, Harriet?"

"We'll manage, you know. And not just you and I and Bredon and Paul, and not just England either; I mean all that's good in our civilisation." She leaned forward and took his hands in hers. "We've survived one; we'll survive another."

"It seems so damned unfair that we must survive another," he replied, but the brittle tone softened a little. "I had hoped, you know, that any sons or daughters of ours would grow up in a better world than that."

"All mothers and fathers hope that, Peter. Perhaps when this is all over, they will."

Peter kissed her on the forehead. "Where did you learn such optimism, dearest?"

"From you, of course." His hair, through dint of open-field-tramping and the lateness of the hour, had lost its daytime sleekness, and she brushed stray fair strands back. "Peter, it's Christmas. If there was ever a time to look for hope, it's now."

He was quiet for a moment, then slowly smiled. "No fairy takes, nor witch hath power to charm, so hallowed and so gracious is the time." He rose to his feet and drew her to him. "My twin compass."

"Blow, blow, thou bitter wind," Harriet answered. "We shall endure. And, for now, make good cheer."

 


End file.
